Prof. Xiaoqin Zhu is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Applied Social Sciences of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests lie in the areas of child and adolescent well-being, mental health, and their emotional and behavioral problems (e.g., delinquency, depression, and Internet addiction), contextual influence (e.g., parental control, parent–child relationship, and schooling) and protective effects of individual assets (e.g., psychosocial competence and character development), positive youth development (PYD) program implementation and effectiveness evaluation, university students’ leadership and Service-Learning education and their learning effectiveness. 

Her current research projects focus on the influence of childhood experience and family process (e.g., parental psychological control, different subsystems such as spousal and parent-child relationships) on adolescent development in multiple aspects, including academic, psychosocial, and behavioral outcomes. She is the PI of several ongoing longitudinal projects and has published more than 50 articles in prestigious journals, including Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Happiness Studies, Journal of Affective Disorders, Children and Youth Services Review, Research on Social Work Practice, Child Indicators Research, and Applied Research in Quality of Life.

Prof. Zhu has a strong belief that cultivating internal and external assets among young people can help them to live meaningfully and happily while mitigating the risk of having developmental problems. In addition to academic research, Prof. Zhu has also devoted herself to putting PYD notions into practice in terms of developing PYD and leadership development curricula, teaching youths, and training teachers and social workers to implement PYD programs. Prof. Zhu has obtained several international and local research and teaching awards, including the Young Scholar Award awarded by the International Society of Quality-of-Life Studies, Gold Award in Wharton-QS Reimagine Education Awards (as a team member), and Faculty Award for Outstanding Achievement in Knowledge Transfer (KT)-Society (as a team member), and Faculty Awards/Prizes for Outstanding Performance/Achievement in Teaching (as a team member).

• Bachelor of Medicine in Nursing, Peking University     
• Master of Science in Applied Psychology, Peking University
• Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong